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When my apartment required a ceiling repaint after a roof leak, I was told that it was the owner’s responsibility. OC fixed the leak, I paid for the damaged ceiling to be repainted. Now a new strata manager says that OC both fixes the leak and pays for the repainting in other apartments that have recently had a leak. Is this correct? And can I ask to be reimbursed for the painting I have had done, even though it was a year or two back.
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Generally, if lot property is damaged by a common property water leak, for example, then its the Owners Corporation responsibility to make the damage good again. So your new strata manager is probably right. But there are other considerations. Was the damage small, and you wanted the whole ceiling repainted, instead of having a touch up or a small patch? In that situation, the OC might prefer to patch, or contribute 5% (say) of the cost for the repainting. You should put it to your strata committee that the OC should contribute to the repairs, and see what they say.
Paint on the ceiling and walls is lot owner responsibility. The actual ceiling itself is OC responsibility. OC repairs the leak. Lot owner repaints the ceiling.
The lesson for you is that you should have left the ceiling unpainted before asking the OC to pay for the repaint. The Owners Corporation / strata manager needs to see that it needs the repaint work.
OC may reject your request because they have no evidence of what it looked like and they cannot determine how much that job should cost.
Paint on the ceiling and walls is lot owner responsibility. The actual ceiling itself is OC responsibility. OC repairs the leak. Lot owner repaints the ceiling.
I think the rule is, or used to be, that the OC was only responsible for repairing and repainting the damage done while repairing the leak. E.g. if they had to cut a hole in your ceiling to fix the leak then they would have to repair and repaint the ceiling. Otherwise, the repaint was down to the lot owner. I know it doesn’t make much sense but that’s how it used to be and perhaps still is.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
To quote from the Bannermans Lawyers’ article about this:-
What about damage to my lot property that will result from the owners corporation carrying out
repairs to common property?
If the owners corporation damages your lot property in the course of repairing and maintaining the
common property, it is liable for the damage to your lot property.It’s not about ownership of the property, it’s about liability. If you damage someone else’s car, you are responsible for its repairs. If the Owners Corporation leak damages your property, like ceiling paint, or carpet, then the OC is liable for its repair.
If the Owners Corporation leak damages your property, like ceiling paint, or carpet, then the OC is liable for its repair.
The Bannermans quote refers to damage done repairing common property, not damage done by a failure of common property. Just saying…
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Here is a scenario: Imagine a cyclone has damaged the roof. The ceiling is stained with water but there is no hole in the ceiling.
When the owners corporation sends a tradesperson to fix the roof, one of two things happens during this scenario:
- There is NO FURTHER damage to the ceiling. It is merely stained by the water from the cyclone event. Lot owner pays for re-painting the ceiling.
- During the roof repair, the tradesperson pokes a hole into the ceiling. Now the owners corporation is responsible for fixing the hole in the ceiling and re-painting over the repaired hole.
If the water stain happened at a different location from the hole poked by the tradesman, the owners corporation may argue that they still don’t have to re-paint over the water stain.
In our complex (it is a Company Title), a common area structure caused a leak into the apartment below. In this case not only was the ceiling fixed and painted, the flooring was replaced by the strata insurance.
i am in similar situation…. there was a leak from the corner of the building which causes leaking down to my appartment. the strata fixed the matter outside, but when i ask them to fix the damage on my apartment ceilling, their response was “we will not be repairing the ceiling, windowsill, and edge of the wall as this is Lot Property as per by-law 17 Strata are not responsible for Lot property repairs”
is that right? if not what should i do next?
Thanks
This quirk in strata laws and the interpretation thereof has bugged me for years. In any other walk of life, if one party’s negligence (failure to repair and maintain common property) caused damage to another party’s property, the first party would be liable for repairs. I have heard of owners making a claim directly to the strata insurer, or alternatively, going to the small claims court. Either way, success is not guaranteed and you have to ask if it’s worth the effort.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
KCstrata
its clear your committee does not know what common property is.
Ceilings, other than between floors of the same lot, window sills, and walls (on the perimeter of the lot) are common property
Id push back on them, and even threaten to take them to mediation.
Ceilings… are common property
But the paint on them is not.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
I suppose people don’t see paint as being separate from common property.
Think of it like wallpaper. Common property is the wall or ceiling (the cement, bricks, wood, gyprock). What you add to it (paint, wallpaper) is not part of common property. It is part of the lot.
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